The Truth
by LovingRedTide
Summary: Find out the truth.
1. Chapter 1

Imagine you are in an alternate dimension and the life you're living now is not real. Everything around you is an illusion and there are people waiting for you to wake up from this world. Maybe your family and friends are waiting for you but you can't get to them, you're stuck here... with people like Donald Trump running for president and global warming is melting the polar icecaps. Well I'm here to tell you everything I've said is true. This world is not real. And I'm writing this fanfiction to tell you exactly how I found out...

I woke up to the sound of of my alarm clock. I groaned and rolled over to look at the time. 7:30am. "Shut up, it's not even a school day!" I scolded, turning the alarm off. I turned back over and closed my eyes...And then my phone started ringing, "Ughhh!" I reached over to the beside table and grabbed the Iphone 6, pulling it so hard it came off the charger. "What?" I snapped.

"Is that any way to answer the phone to your best friend, Hailey?" I replied with a grunt. I knew it would be Madison even before I answered the call. She called me every morning even though she knew I'd still be asleep. Maddy woke up long before any _normal_ person would so she could go out for a run. I asked her why but she said it was because she liked seeing the world wake up. "Anyway... I was calling because I wanted to know if you wanted to go into town later?"

"Yeah...Wait, what? I wasn't listening." I had sort of drifted of nearly falling asleep again.

"Hailey!" She let out a sigh, "Do you want to go into town or not?"

"Yeah, OK. When?"

"I'll pick you up around nine." I glanced back at the clock again.

"OK, see you then." I ended the call and went back to sleep.

I could swear I only slept for five more minutes but by the time I had woken up properly it was quarter to nine. I bounced out of bed pulling on my usual outfit of white leggings and a light blue _SuperDry_ top. I quickly shoveled down a bowl of Cheerios and quickly tied up my long, frizzy hair and put a dab of mascara on my eyelashes making my blue eyes look brighter. I was actually very proud of myself for being ready in such a short space of time although Madison didn't seem to think so. "You're five minutes late." She grumbled starting up her little, red Fiat. She had only just passed her driving test and was still restricted to a 45mph speed limit.

"Sorry." We started driving towards town. Maddy had long, blonde hair and deep brown eyes. Unlike me she was tall and toned, around 5ft 9. I was a measly 5ft 3.

"So where do you want to go? I need a coffee and soon." She smiled and drove though a red light.

"That was red." I said looking over my shoulder as if expecting the police to be on our tail.

"If anyone asks," She said beeping at a car that pulled out suddenly in front of her,"I'm colour blind." I shook my head and laughed. We pulled into a car park and parked at an odd angle. We hopped out the car and headed into the town. Portrush was a small coastal town at the top of Northern Ireland. I'd lived there all my life with my aunt Molly and uncle Ned, they had sort of taken over the role of 'parents' after my real parents disappeared one day to 'travel the world' according to aunt Molly. I didn't believe her. No one has even heard from them since they left.

We walked along the promenade past Barry's Amusements and up towards the Dunluce Centre. "What are you wearing to the formal? I got this really nice green dress yesterday, it matches Luke's tie." Luke was Maddy's boyfriend.

"I saw a red dress in New Look so I'm saving up for it." I stopped to look in the window of a shop that sold shoes, a pair of black pumps catching my eye, "Ooh, I'm gonna get those they're on sale!" I grabbed Maddy's hand a dragged her into the shop.

"What happened to saving money?"

"Screw it!" I grinned.

We walked out of the shop fifteen minutes later, shoe box in hand. I was grinning happily. "Honestly, you're the world's worst at saving money." Maddy rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone before starting to text someone. Probably Luke. I started daydreaming to myself... about daydreaming weirdly. I was known for my daydreaming. Sometimes I would be half way through a sentence and I'll stop because I'll be thinking about puppies or something. "Hailey? Where are you going?" I snapped into attention.

"What the-?" I was standing in the middle of a bookstore, I was sure had never been here before. Hailey was standing at the door looking at me weirdly.

"You hate books." She leaned in and looked around, not coming in after me. There were stacks of books everywhere, some on shelves, some in boxes and some on the floor. The shop smelt old and musty. For some reason my body started moving on its own, walking towards the back of the shop. An old man suddenly appeared out from behind a stack of books, "I'm sure I left them somewhere around here..." He scratched his balding head. He looked kind and friendly, like the type of person you expect to see dress up as Santa every Christmas. He a long white beard and rosy cheeks. It was then he looked up and noticed me, "Oh, hello! Can I help you? Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"Uh..." I looked back towards the door where Maddy had been standing but she was gone. "I was just looking." I mumbled and started looking at the spines of books. I'd never even heard of any of these books. I even came across one called 'Allan In Ponderland'. Who is Allan and why is he in Ponderland? I wanted to find out more about this guy but my feet were pulling me away from it towards another shelf. I stopped in front of the shelf when I noticed a relatively new looking book. I reached out for it and as soon as my fingers touched the spine a flood of images entered my brain so fast I couldn't make out what they were of.

"Ah, I see you have found one of my favourite books." I jumped in surprise as the old man was suddenly standing right beside me, "I just got it in last week, read it in one night."

"How'd you manage that?" I had pulled out the book and was now running my fingers over the front cover. It was thick and heavy and probably had more than four hundred pages in it. "I always get bored halfway through the book and then can't seem to finish it." The man chuckled.

"That's probably because you're doing it wrong." I was about to ask him what he meant when he suddenly changed the topic, "You haven't seen a pair of glasses lying around here anywhere? I appear to have misplaced them..." he scratched his head.

"They're around your neck." I said pointing at the pair of reading glasses that hung on a chain around his neck. He laughed and twirled the chain around his finger.

"Thank you my dear." I looked back down at the book. I hadn't even read the blurb to find out what the book was about but already knew I wanted to read it. The man smiled as he saw me staring at the book dreamily, "You can have it if you want."

"Really?" I looked up ant him hopefully, "Wait, how much is it?"

"No price. No catches. I just like seeing young people getting into books. Nowadays they all seemed to have there head stuck in there gadgets." He smiled sadly before looking back at me, "Go ahead."

"Thank you very much!" I grinned, "I better go find my friend. See ya later!" He waved before going to sort out a box of books.

 **Kyle's view**

She was just lying there, not moving. I held her hand tightly, "Please, Hailey. Wake up. I need you..." I mumbled and pressed my lips against the back of her hand. Eight months she'd been like this, in some kind of coma like the other 7.8 billion people on this planet. So far only some people had woken up and I was praying Hailey would be next. The blue, hospital curtains parted a little and Morgan poked her head through, "The book keeper gave away a book!" A sudden burst of hope made me jump up and run to find the book keeper.

XXX

I walked out of the book shop and looked around for Maddy. She was sitting on the swing in the park when I found her. She was crying. "Maddy! What's wrong?" I ran over to her and sat beside her. She held up her phone and I read the text,

HEY MADISON. I DON'T THINK OUR RELATIONSHIP IS WORKING OUT. CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS?

LUKE.

I scowled. I was going to kill him. They had been going out for three months and he thinks he can just end it like THAT?! I held back my anger and put my arm around her, "I'm sorry... He's just another stupid boy. You deserve better." She cried even more.

"I loved him!" She wept, "He was perfect! I-It must have been something I did! I'm so stupid!" I hugged her.

"Don't say that. You're the one that's perfect , He's an idiot." She looked at me with that 'Yeah, right' look. "OK let's do the same procedure as last time we'll get a Mc Donald's to take away and we'll have a Harry Potter/Twilight movie marathon back at my house, OK?" she shook her head.

"I'm just going to go home..." She sniffed and stood up. I looked at her.

"Are you sure? I mean, we always hang out after a break-up."

"I want to go home." She turned and started walking back down the road. I ran after her.

"Wait!" I yelled. Why was she getting so uptight? She's never like this?

"Please, Hailey, can I just want to go home!" She picked up speed, leaving me standing on my own. Geez, she could have at least given me a ride home. I spun around and walked back to the bench where I had left my new shoes and book. I flopped down on the bench with an exasperated sigh. I looked down at the book. It had a picture of me on it standing next to a tall blond guy with deep brown eyes. Wait, what. _A picture of me?_ I blinked and it was gone, instead it had been replaced with a plain book cover. The title was ' _Forever.'_

"What the?" I picked up the book and opened it and started to read...

 _Chapter 1_

 _She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I hadn't seen her at the youth club before, but I did recognize her friend, Morgen, who went to the same church as me although I never spoke to her. I nudged my best friend Jason and nodded towards the new girl. He raised an eyebrow and nodded before turning back to the game of pool he'd been playing, but I wanted to get to know this girl. She was beautiful, long spiralling, brown hair and the brightest blue eyes I'd ever seen._

 _The night went on but I couldn't help glancing up every now and again, trying to get a glimpse of her. She caught me starring and smiled. I smiled beck and pretended to be really interested in a leaflet about horse riding. She was walking towards me, out of the corner of my eye I saw her say something to Morgen before turning and walking over to me._

 _"Hi." She said giving me a nervous smile._

 _"Hi..." I said. There was a minute of awkward silence, "So... are you new here?" She seemed relieved that I had found something for us to talk about._

 _"Yeah, I'm Hailey." She smiled sweetly tucking a lock of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail._

 _"I'm Kyle." I extended a hand, she took it._

 _"Well, Kyle, you like horse riding?"_


	2. Chapter 2

After an hour of reading and I was completely in love with the book and I'd only got through the first three chapters! It was around lunch time so I decided to head to my favourite café on Eglinton street. I tottered down the street taking in all of my surroundings. It was late July and so it was fairly busy in town with tourists on their way to the amusements and the beach. I opened the door to the café and the smell of chips and coffee hit me. I ordered a portion of chips and a coke and took a seat by the window.

 **Kyle's view**

It had to be her. The way the book keeper described her, brown hair, blue eyes. It had to be her. The gathering started to spread out once the book keeper finished his speech about his most recent customer. Morgan and I pushed our way through the dispersing crowd.

"Mr Paddington! Can we talk to you for a minute?" I yell. He turns around and smiles when he sees us coming.

"Ah, Kyle, Morgan! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Was it her? Was it Hailey?" I blurted out. I knew he couldn't tell us even if it was her. It was against the rules. When the first book keeper, Albert Weatherstone, travelled to the other dimension he saw his brother but his brother couldn't remember anything about this dimension. When Albert travelled back to our dimension he told people about his brother and the people started asking him to find their family and friends. He did this but no matter where he went or who he found they didn't remember. When he came back and told the people who he had seen, the person in the coma slowly started fading, becoming one with the other dimension. In order to stop this he wasn't able to tell the people who it was he'd seen so instead he looked for other ways of helping the people in the coma wake up. He started writing books about this dimension and taking them to the people in the other dimension. Whoever found their story in the other dimension would then wake up if they read the book.

As you can imagine it would take ages to find everyone and even if the book keeper did find them there was no guarantee that they would even read the book.

"Was my sister there?" Morgan asked. Her sister Maddison had also fallen into a coma not long before Hailey.

"Now, now, you know I can't tell you that." The old book keeper said.

"Can you tell us the name of the book you gave away?" I asked hoping it would have something to do with Hailey or me. Mr Paddington looked at me for a minute stroking his bewhiskered face.

"Forever. It was called Forever." Great that was no help at all, "By the way, you haven't seen my glasses, have you?"


	3. Chapter 3

I hadn't put the book down all weekend. I so badly wanted to find out what happened and if they get together in the end. At night I was stuck because I wanted to sleep and read. The book was driving me insane, I've been having dreams too. In them I meet Kyle and we do everything that happens in the book. Sometimes the dreams feel so real I wake up and forget where I am for moment. It doesn't help I'm a really slow reader so I get frustrated when it takes me so long to finish a chapter.

I had to be dragged to school by Maddy on Monday. She refused to talk to me about Luke when I asked her about it.

"What time did you go to bed at last night?" Maddy asked me, slamming her locker so hard I jumped, "You look like you're going to collapse any minute."

"Um... I don't know. Two o'clock? Or was it three?" I shrugged, "I was reading."

"Reading?" Her eyebrows went up in surprise, "Since when do you like reading?"

"Since I got that book from the bookshop."

"Waterstones?" She asked still staring at me skeptically. I rolled my eyes.

"No. Remember? We went to that old bookshop when we were in town on Saturday."

"We never went into any bookshop, Hailey." We walked into class and took our seat next to each other.

"Yes we did. Look, I got this book." I pulled _Forever_ out of my bag and waved it in front of her. She took the book from my hand and flipped through the pages.

"It's blank." She turned it over looking at the blurb, "And it has no cover."

"What are you talking about, look, it says on the first page, ' _She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I hadn't seen her at the youth club before, but I did recognize her friend, Morgen, who went to the same church as me although I never spoke to her. I nudged my best friend Jason and nodded towards the new girl. He raised an eyebrow and nodded before turning back to the game of pool he'd been playing, but I wanted to get to know this girl. She was beautiful, long spiralling, brown hair and the brightest blue eyes I'd ever seen.'"_ When I looked up at her she was staring at me like I'd just turned into a unicorn.

"Are you feeling OK, Hailey?" I blinked. What? Am _I_ feeling Ok? Is _she_ feeling OK? I could see the book and it defiantly had writing in it. I stared at the cover of the book and I watched as and image of me and the same guy I'd seen last time appeared on it before disappearing again. "Hailey?"

"What? Sorry, I drifted off."

"I think you should go see the school nurse, Hail. You look a bit pale..." I took the book from her and shoved it back in my bag. She's trying to wind me up, we did it all the time to each other. That had to be it.

"I'm fine. You can drop the act," I smiled, "I'm not falling for it."

"What act?" The teacher entered the class interrupting our conversation by announcing a surprise maths test. Great.


End file.
